


Bloodbuzz

by CloudAtlas



Series: All Hallows Eve 2014, Be_Compromised Style [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Healing, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I never thought about love when I thought about home</i> - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfySK7CLEEg">Bloodbuzz Ohio by the National</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodbuzz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enigma731](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/gifts).



It was October. It was October and they had downtime and, for no reason Natasha could fathom, Clint was taking her to Iowa.

Clint didn’t talk about his childhood, but not in the way that Natasha didn’t talk about hers. Natasha’s method was to _actually_ not talk about it; Clint would talk about it, but only the inconsequential things. And, of course, the fact that it was unhappy.

So his suggestion to go to Iowa came as a bit of a surprise, but when she asked why he suddenly felt the urge to take her to the place he grew up, all he said was, “It’s Hallowe’en soon.”

“So this is the beginning of a horror story?”

“Not really.”

He drove them in his shitty Dodge Charger, a thousand miles of largely unanswered questions.

“Huh,” Natasha said as they crossed the state line. “The Hawkeye State.”

Clint shrugged.

“That where your name comes from?”

“Probably.”

Natasha didn’t push.

They arrived in Waverly, Iowa, on Hallowe’en. Clint’s old family home was a rundown semi-detached no longer on the edge of the town thanks to urban sprawl.

“You used to be able to get out into field from the back gate,” he said. “Useful, that was.”

But for all that the neighbourhood looked as if it had seen better days, there were families out with little kids dressed as mummies and vampires and… yes, there was a little Captain America, knocking on doors and shrieking in delight as they were plied with candy by normally-surly neighbours.

“Clint,” said Natasha, tearing her gaze away from a little girl dressed as Batman. “Why are we here?”

Clint’s hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched.

“Not all my memories of here are bad,” he said.

Natasha waited for him to elaborate.

“I hate this place, this town, but… not everything was terrible. Over there,” he pointed at the house next to his old home, “lived Mrs Squarzoni. She’d give us Hershey’s kisses for Hallowe’en, and let us hide in her garden when things were bad. Mr Peretti gave us mulled apple juice, and Old Mrs Templeton helped me make helmet one Hallowe’en so I could be – ”

His shoulders hunched over even more.

“ – I could be Captain America.”

Captain America probably wasn’t very fashionable when Clint was small. Natasha imagined him as a young boy, dressing up as Captain America for Hallowe’en so for a day he could pretend he was strong. She aches for that boy, his trauma so distressingly commonplace that in many ways it’s worse than hers.

“I hated it here. But it wasn’t all bad.”

Natasha still didn’t understand.

“I missed Fury,” Clint said, changing topic seemingly at random. “Missed Hill too.”

He paused, watching a little girl with fairy wings laugh into her fathers shoulder. 

“I don’t miss,” he said eventually, looking back at her and shrugging. “So, it was horrible, but it wasn’t all bad.”

Natasha reached over and gently pulled his hand out of his pocket before lacing their fingers together.

“C’mon,” she said, tugging him towards the car. “Let’s go back to the motel. I’ll get you some Hershey’s kisses and make you mulled apple juice.”


End file.
